


Ever as Before

by coricomile



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7113085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zhenya is ten when he stumbles upon Baba Yaga's hut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever as Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [james](https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/gifts).



> Written for the 2016 Sid/Geno Exchange as a gift for james, who asked for a fairy tale AU. Sorry I wasn't able to work Ovetchkin in! Let's just pretend he's a blacksmith in the village, happily living with Backstrom, making bizarre sculptures for the people. Thank you to rinawrites for the beta!

Zhenya is ten when he stumbles upon Baba Yaga's hut. The smell of rot fills the woods, all consuming. The chicken-legged hut stands alone in the clearing, linens hung in neat lines across the garden. He turns to run, his mother's warnings ringing in his ears, but the old woman appears in front of him, baring her yellowed teeth and waving her pestle in his face. 

She is hideous, her bulbous nose and stringy, greasy hair making her seem grotesque. Zhenya stands frozen in place, his small heart racing in his chest. He knows he is going to die. He thinks of his brother and parents and wishes he'd listened to them. 

"You're trespassing in my home," Baba Yaga says. Her voice grates across his ears like claws. He tries to cover them to block it out, but he cannot move. "You will pay, boy."

"Please don't kill me," Zhenya says. Tears gather in his eyes, blurring his vision. The old woman cackles and Zhenya cries harder. 

"That would be too easy," she says. "I will let you kill yourself." She waves her hand and the rotten stench becomes overpowering. 

Zhenya screams as pain rips through him. His bones crack and turn under his skin, puncturing through the thin spots at his joints. Everything sounds so loud, the squeal of birds in the trees and the tread of hooves on dirt pounding against his eardrums. Thick, dark fur ruptures from under his skin, and the sound he makes is inhuman. Baba Yaga stands above him, laughing cruelly as he writhes in the dirt. 

"You will pay," she says, and then she and the hut are gone. Zhenya lays on the ground, howling in pain. He wishes she'd killed him. 

\---

Zhenya's hut is made of carved stone and crudely whittled tree trunks. It's large, but it has to be. He's grown into something hulking and feral as the years passed, his body larger than the black bears he'd been frightened of as a child. His part of the forest is clear of animal and man, all of them trembling at the legends that have sprung up about the beast. He prefers it this way. 

The creature he has become is as hideous as the woman that made him. He has seen himself in the stream, has seen the stunted snout and over large ears. He sometimes wonders what he would have looked like as a man, but those thoughts often leave him in a rage. He will never have life outside of this and it's something he must remember. 

He's chasing a deer through the trees when he comes across a child lying in the snow. She smells of sick, her small body shaking under the poor shelter of a tree. She cries when she sees him and Zhenya recoils from the sound. 

"Out," Zhenya growls. The girl shrinks into herself. Zhenya snarls, baring his teeth, and the girl's eyes flutter shut. She slumps to the ground, unconscious. "Stupid child."

Zhenya gathers her in his arms. She weighs barely anything, so small in the crook of his elbow. She cannot be much older than he was when he had been cursed. His heart twists in his chest. He can do nothing to help her but keep her warm for a few hours and let her die in comfort. 

He takes her back to his hut and lays her on the pile of elk furs in the corner. They are unclean, still bloodied from the hunt, but it's all he has to offer. The best thing he could do is take her to the village at the edge of the woods, but he will not risk his own safety for a child. If the villagers see him, he will be killed. There is no question about it 

The child does not wake as night falls. Zhenya settles into the far corner of the hut, away from the whipping wind with a broken branch and begins carving into it with his claws. He's gotten adept at making shapes, but none of them are refined. His father had made furniture and sold it at the market twice a month to feed them when Zhenya was a child. Zhenya thinks he would have followed in his footsteps if he had been able to stay. 

The moon is high in the sky when he hears the voice calling. His hackles raise as the sound becomes clearer. There is another human in his part of the woods and it's coming closer. 

"Taylor," the voice calls, high and loud to be heard over the wind. " _Taylor_!" The girl twitches on the bedding but does not wake. 

Zhenya crouches in his dark corner, eyes on the mouth of his hut, backed onto his haunches. He has not killed a human so far, but he will if he has to. His life is meaningless, worthless, but he won't let the hag have the victory of his death any time soon. 

A boy wrapped in a thick coat stumbles in over the rocks at the entrance of the hut, his face red from the cold, eyes wild as he yells again. His voice echoes off the walls, too loud for Zhenya's ears. He looks harmless, no older than Zhenya himself, but looks mean nothing. He gasps and falls to his knees when he sees the girl curled on the furs. 

"Taylor," he says weakly, gathering her into his lap. Even in the dark, Zhenya can see the resemblance of their features. "Taylor, I'm so sorry."

"What you do?" Zhenya asks, voice thick and rough with disuse. He barely remembers the words of his own tongue, let alone what the boy speaks. The boy startles, his grip tightening around Taylor's body even as his head whips around. His eyes go wide in fear as Zhenya uncoils from his crouch. 

"Stay back," he says. Zhenya laughs. It's a strange sound that he himself has still not gotten used to, half human and half howl. The boy's teeth clench together. 

"What you do if I don't?" Zhenya asks. He moves closer to them in defiance, claws tapping against the rock. The boy covers Taylor's body with his own, eyes hard as he watches Zhenya's approach. "You leave her in woods in winter. You think she not die? What you do if you leave with her now?"

"I didn't-"

"She already sick when I find," Zhenya says. He knows what happens to children that wander alone. If illness does not catch them, something much worse will. "What you do to her next?"

"It's none of your business," the boy snaps, fire in his eyes even as he trembles. Zhenya bares his teeth, but the boy does not move. 

"Let her die here," Zhenya says. He steps closer, raising a paw to move the boy away. It would do her a kindness to not grow up, to never know the cruelty of the world around her. The boy continues to glower at him, body still braced over the girl's. 

"I'll stay if you let me take her to the healer," the boy says. He squares his shoulders, the stubborn tilt of his jaw dangerous. Taylor shivers in his arms, whimpering quietly, already wracked with fever. She will die in the forest. The boy will not. 

"What make you think I want?" Zhenya asks. He has lived alone for eight years, shunning the place he had once called home. He has not seen the hag since, but he hasn't gone searching. She has done enough damage. 

"I have thumbs," the boy says angrily. Zhenya snarls at him. "I can get you things from the village. I can build you an actual house instead of this. I'll do whatever you want. Just let me take her to be healed." The boy's voice cracks, his face crumpling for the first time into fear and sadness. "Please. She's my sister."

Zhenya stares at him, jaw clenched. He should let them both go. He has no use for the boy, has no use for any human. But he cannot turn him away. The woods are his home now and he has come to accept it, but he has never been able to ignore the loneliness. The boy is fire and determination, a light in the bleakness of Zhenya's world, and Zhenya is selfish enough to want to keep him. 

"Return when sun up," Zhenya says as he takes a step back. 

The boy glares at him, fiercely proud, but Zhenya knows he will return. He gathers his sister in his arms, cradling her weight easily in his broad arms, and marches from Zhenya's hut. Zhenya thinks of Denis and wonders if he had searched for Zhenya when he'd been lost or just let things be. He cannot say he knows the answer. 

\---

Sidney packs a bag of things he thinks he'll need. Taylor is safely at the healer's, alive but very ill. He should never have let go of her hand. He should never have taken his eyes off her. He had been distracted by the smooth, fresh ice that had formed for the first time that year, still covered in a fine layer of snow. When he had turned, Taylor was gone. He deserves this punishment. If she dies- Sidney closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Taylor will be fine. She has to be. 

Sidney's mother cries as he takes his leave, pleading with him to stay. It's tempting to go back on his word, to hide behind the village, but he cannot put them in danger. He does not think the beast could kill them all, but even one life is one life too many. 

He makes his way back through the forest in the dark, shivering in the steady snowfall. He can barely see the tracks he had left on his return and by daybreak they will be completely gone. No one will be able to follow him. There will be no rescue. 

Outside of the crude cave, the beast is massive. Sidney is not small, body made strong and large with construction and field work, but the beast is taller than him by at least two feet, his arms the size of Sidney's thighs. He has no doubt that the beast could crush him easily with one paw, or that the thing's claws could gut him with a single swipe. 

"You sleep there," the beast says, pointing to the corner of the cave that Sidney had found Taylor in. The furs have been rearranged into something like bedding, but Sidney settles down beside them instead. "In morning, you start house. You die in cold like sister."

"She's not going to die," Sidney says tightly. The beast waves a paw at him but says nothing more. "I need tools." The beast's yellow eyes narrow under his thick brow. 

"You trick?" He asks. Sidney bristles. He has already shown he will not go back in his word. The beast laughs, a low, strange rumble that makes goosebumps rise on Sidney's arms. "Old hut in forest. Tell me what you need, I get."

"Fine," Sidney says. He is bone-deep exhausted, cold still running through him. The beast watches him for a moment before curling up, close enough that Sidney can smell the wildness of his fur and feel the heat pouring from him. He is being trapped, forced into the corner, and there is nothing he can do. 

"My name Zhenya," the beast says in his strange, awful accent. Sidney does not care. When he says nothing, one yellow eye peers at him. 

"Sidney," he eventually says. Zhenya nods his massive head before settling it onto his paws. Sidney curls up on the furs, the copper smell of blood strong all around him, and forces himself to sleep. This is his life now and he will learn to live with it. 

In the morning, Zhenya pushes a hunk of raw meat at him and requests his list of tools. Sidney makes a fire as soon as Zhenya is gone, careful not to think of what animal the meat he is cooking could have come from. The cave is more daunting with Zhenya gone from it. Sidney eats his breakfast with his hands and rinses them in the snow. 

Zhenya helps cut the trees down, slashing through their trunks with his claws and carrying them into a pile for Sidney to measure and cut again. Sidney spends the day at the mouth of the cave, marking measurements and dimensions and plans onto the wall with the sharp edges of a rock. He breaks for lunch and dinner, more of the same silent exchange of bloodied meat, and works until he can no longer see in the dark. 

Zhenya is silent most of the day, willing to listen to Sidney's instructions without complaint. His temper still rises whenever Sidney gets snappish or wanders too far off in the woods, crashing down like a wave before disappearing entirely. When Sid shouts at him for clawing through a stack of two-by-fours that had been painstakingly cut with the rusted handsaw, Zhenya storms away. 

The cave is much colder that night without him. 

For three days, the routine repeats itself. Sidney makes a fire, cooks whatever Zhenya brings to him, and begins cutting wood. He had spent most of his life following his father around, learning the tools and techniques of creating buildings. This year, after his eighteenth birthday, he was supposed to begin his apprenticeship with the extraordinary Mario Lemieux. 

He wonders as he begins to hammer together the frame of the house what places he could have built, what things he would have learned under Mario's skilled hands. Something more than this rudimentary shack, built too high to compensate for the beast's size. There are plans for two rooms, but Sidney doesn't know if he will live to stay in the small one set aside for him. 

He eats, he builds, and he does not think. 

\---

Sidney doesn't speak much other than to give orders. Zhenya is amused by this more than he is annoyed. When the boy had said he'd build Zhenya a home, Zhenya had expected a fumbling attempt as bad as his own, but Sidney clearly knows what to do. Zhenya fetches and holds and does as he's told. The hut has been fine for him for years, but winter will only get worse and Sidney will need something with proper walls. 

At night, Zhenya curls up close to where Sidney sleeps to block the worst of the wind. The first two nights he hadn't slept at all, eyes on the boy to make sure that he would not attack. But Sidney had merely slept, hunched into a ball inside the furs, his soft breaths so alien in the silence of the hut. There is no reason to trust him, but Zhenya allows himself sleep. 

In the morning, he wakes before Sidney and goes to hunt. He knows it's not a pretty thing, knows that when he is finished there is blood on his muzzle and paws and chest. He skins and cuts the meat before bathing himself in the freezing river. It leaves him shivering, his fur collecting ice, but he won't scare the boy any more than he has to. 

Two weeks of building has the frame of the house up, large and angled strangely to fit into the space Zhenya had cleared. Zhenya noses around it when Sidney isn't looking, smelling the pine and dirt and metal. It reminds him so much of his mother's house that he wants to howl. Sidney shoos him away when he catches Zhenya at it, mouth screwed up into a frown. 

"So bossy," Zhenya says, stepping delicately over the frame. "You boss sister this much?" Sidney's shoulders go tight, his entire body stiffening. Zhenya curls into himself like a beaten dog. He had not meant harm, yet-

"She never listened to me," Sidney eventually says softly. He picks his hammer back up and gives a powerful swing, nailing down the frame for a door. 

"I'm younger brother," Zhenya says after a moment. Sidney does not stop working, but his head is cocked towards Zhenya. "Younger siblings don't learn to listen until too late."

Zhenya offers no more and Sidney says nothing else. They eat dinner in silence, the flames at the mouth of the hut turning Sidney into something golden and unnatural. When they lay down to sleep, Sidney kicks one of the furs at Zhenya. 

This boy, Zhenya thinks, is too good to be near him.  
\---

It takes three months for the house to be built. The winter grows bitter around them, the snow stealing days of work from under Sidney's hands. Zhenya watches him pace, watches him fidget until he can go back outside to work. When one room is completely built, Zhenya insists Sidney sleeps inside it, snarling until Sidney is cowed enough to agree. 

Sidney is still quiet, but some nights he will tell Zhenya stories of the village, of his sister. He does not know Zhenya's family, has never heard of them, and Zhenya feels sorrow. Even if they were there, even if Sidney could bring them word that Zhenya still lives, it would have been cruel. They have had years to mourn his death. To make them mourn what he has become as well would be too much for them to bear. 

When Sidney sleeps, Zhenya resumes his whittling. He handles a chunk of pine delicately between his paws, carving it so, so slowly into the shape of a bird. It's not a house, it's not a place to live, but it's something he can give in return. 

When the house is finished, Sidney stands at the front, head bowed and shoulders hunched. Zhenya pulls open the door with a claw, exploring the wide rooms curiously. It's nothing at all like the house he had grown up in as a child, but there are walls and a pit for a fire, and a raised section in the largest room to sleep in. Zhenya is so pleased with it, even if he has to step carefully to avoid scratching the floors with his claws. 

"Are you going to kill me now?" Sidney asks when he walks into the front room. Zhenya recoils, gouging the wood as he stumbles backward. 

"Why you think I kill?" Zhenya asks, his voice catching in his throat. 

"I did what you needed," Sidney says evenly. He looks around the house, his eyes wide but unafraid, and anger makes Zhenya's hackles rise. "Why else keep me around?" 

"You want die?" Zhenya snarls, digging his claws into the floor. Wood, so carefully cut and sanded and laid, cracks under the strain. He will tear this house down, will shatter Sidney's work for spite. His face is monstrous, but he had thought Sidney could see past it, could learn to be a companion. This, this betrayal, is why he spent so much time alone. 

Having Sidney stay instead of releasing him back to the village was a misguided mistake. Zhenya needs no one, and he will have no one again. 

"Leave," Zhenya roars. Sidney stands frozen for a moment, small inside the massive house he'd built, and then he turns and walks through the door. 

Zhenya shreds the floor, slams his body into the walls until cracks begin to appear. If he is nothing more than a beast, a monster, he will act like one. There will be nothing human left inside him and Baba Yaga will have her justice. He does not have to die to give it to her. He finds the bird he had so carefully carved and crushes it beneath his paw, the wings snapping under his weight. He should have known better. 

Outside, a wolf howls. The sound of its pack fills the air, their voices echoing off the trees. Zhenya howls back at them, his throat aching and his skin pulled too tight over his skin. His body goes cold under his fur when he hears a sharp, frightened shout. 

Sidney. 

Zhenya runs through the forest, snout up and ears high as he follows the footprints in the snow. He finds the stink of wet wolf before he finds the sharp, human smell of Sidney and he races after it, claws sinking into the soft ground. It would be life, his life, to have turned the boy away, to save him, only to have him die anyway. 

There are three wolves circling Sidney, hemming him into the center of a clearing, lips pulled back to show their fangs. Sidney holds a stick in his hands, his eyes flickering between the wolves. The strong lines of his shoulders are tense, ready to swing. He startles when he sees Zhenya and one of the wolves takes that moment to lunge. 

Zhenya jumps, pushing off the soft dirt and crashing into the wolf. Fur fills his mouth, followed by the sharp, coppery flood of blood. He shakes his head, tearing at the wolf's shoulder before tossing it to the side. Pain rips through him as one of the wolves sinks its own teeth into his back leg. He kicks, claws catching a soft underbelly, but the wolf doesn't let go. 

Time swells, every second long and full of pain as Zhenya fights. He is so much larger than they are, his body more powerful, but there are more of them and they move faster. Zhenya puts one down, its blood turning the snow pink, and another bites a chunk from his ear. He howls in agony, his vision gone red. The wolf lets out a shocked yelp when Sidney swings the stick and catches it in the side of the head. It limps away pathetically, leaving its fallen brethren behind. 

Zhenya collapses into the snow. He cannot move his back leg, no matter how hard he tries. His fur is tacky with blood and snow, chunks of it scattered dark across the ground, but Sidney is safe. 

"You came to help me," Sidney says softly. He strokes his hand over Zhenya's brow, voice shaking. There is blood on his face, his throat, and Zhenya cannot tell where it came from. 

"Was not always monster," Zhenya rasps. He thinks he is dying. Everything hurts, his bones and his arms and his shredded paws. Sidney keeps stroking his head, fingers curling into Zhenya's fur. It's the first touch Zhenya can remember. 

"I'll be back," Sidney says. He looks around, face so very pale, and Zhenya tries to smile. He doesn't know what it looks like on his face. His mouth aches, the places around his teeth so tender that even the feel of the frozen air on them stings. 

"Won't," Zhenya says. Sidney's hand covers his eyes, sending Zhenya into the dark. 

"I will," Sidney says. His warmth fades, the sound of his footfalls in the snow eventually fading as well. 

Zhenya lays in the snow, breathing as deeply as his bruised chest will let him, and prepares to die. The hag has won, as she always will.

\---

Sidney runs to the village. His feet catch on roots hidden under the snow, sending him sprawling onto the ground. His hands shake, palms raw from the scrape of bark. Every time his eyes fall shut he sees the broken, bloodied shape of Zhenya laying on the ground, struggling for breath. 

The village is dark, night long since fallen, but Sidney still goes straight to the healer's house. He pounds on the door, lungs burning as he gasps in deep breaths. He doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to fix this. He pounds on the door again. Dana opens the door in his dressing gown, his eyes going wide when he sees Sidney. 

"Sidney?" Dana asks uncertainly. "We thought you had-"

"You have to come with me," Sidney says in a rush. Dana takes a hesitant step back and Sidney looks down at his stained clothes. He can only imagine what he looks like. "I was attacked by wolves. My- my friend got in their way. Please, Dana. I need you to help."

For a moment, Dana doesn't move. Sidney wants to shout, wants to force him to understand. Eventually Dana nods and retreats into the house. Sidney waits outside, head clasped between his hands. Zhenya might be dead when they return. Sidney shakes himself. He won't think about it. He won't. 

He leads Dana back through the forest, impatient with the slow speed of the healer's steps. Zhenya hadn't meant to kill him, had protected him. Shame curls in Sidney's stomach, nestling in against the fear. He had been so wrong about everything, and Zhenya had paid the price. 

Zhenya is where Sidney left him, his fur speckled with snow. Sidney drops down next to him, pressing a hand to his chest. It rises and falls, slow and uneven, but he's still breathing. 

"Sidney," Dana says cautiously. "Step away." He's already drawing the pistol from his medical bag, face pale. Sidney puts himself between them. 

"Don't," he says. One of Zhenya's giant eyes open, hazy and clouded. Sidney can't tell if he can see anything at all. He hopes he can't. "Please, Dana. I know he's frightening to look at. But he found Taylor when she got lost. I would have died if he hadn't stepped in. _Please_."

"He held you hostage," Dana says, pistol aimed at Sidney's chest. Sidney's heartbeat thunders in his ears. He has known Dana since he was small. He doesn't think Dana would kill him, but he's been wrong about so many things. 

"I was on my way back to village before the wolves came," Sidney says. He holds his hands up, fear and anger biting at his insides. "He's harmless. I swear."

This morning, with dread hanging over his head, Sidney could not imagine saying such a thing. Zhenya with his deadly claws and teeth is not harmless, but he is perhaps not really a beast at all. 

Dana watches them carefully for a moment before sighing. He doesn't put the pistol away, but he does come to kneel beside them. Sidney takes it as a blessing. Dana works quickly and quietly, sewing up wounds and cutting away chunks of fur to apply healing balms. Sidney hands him requested tools, holds Zhenya down when he begins to writhe in pain. Zhenya whimpers but doesn't lash out. 

"I can't guarantee he'll live," Dana says when he's done. He sits back on his heels and wipes his brow. "Normally, I'd put a patient this severe under my watch, but…" He shakes his head and begins putting his tools away. 

"I'll take care of him," Sidney says quietly. A life for a life is an even trade. Dana presses his lips together but pulls a pot of the balm from his bag and gives Sidney directions. 

Together, they manage to carry Zhenya back to the house. Sidney's heart breaks as he takes it in. His work has been ruined, months of his life for naught. Dana says nothing, even as he traces a deep gouge in the door that could only have come from Zhenya's claws. 

"Be well, Sidney," Dana says, and then Sidney and Zhenya are alone again. 

\---

Zhenya sleeps for three days. Sidney cleans his wounds and applies the balm and carefully picks burrs out of his fur inside the ruin of the house. It's strange to see Zhenya, who had been so much like an overgrown dog full of energy, be so still. 

"You came back," Zhenya says on the fourth morning. His voice is rough, no more than a whisper, but Sidney still jumps to attention. 

"I said I would." He checks over Zhenya's stitches, hushing him when he whines. 

"Stupid," Zhenya says. He closes his eyes and does not open them for the rest of the day. 

They spend a week like this, Zhenya floating from sleep to speak briefly before passing out again. Sidney feels a pang of guilt every time surprise passes over Zhenya's face. Had he not been so sure of his death sentence, had he let himself believe Zhenya was more than a monster, he could have spared them both this. 

When Zhenya is able to sit up on his own, Sidney feeds him rabbit stew. It's nothing like his mother's, gamey and thin, but there's very little to work with. Most of it ends up on Zhenya's snout, his black nose shiny and the goatee below his mouth twisting with damp, but it seems to help. 

"How did this happen?" Sidney asks one afternoon, hand hovering over Zhenya's fur. Zhenya had mentioned family before, but Sidney had ignored it. He hadn't thought of Zhenya being human once, even though Zhenya had told him stories of his childhood. Zhenya is silent, his yellow eyes so bright in the dark. 

"I wander into Baba Yaga's land one day," Zhenya finally says. He flexes his claws, the movement slow and careful. His strength is coming back slowly, but he still cannot walk on his own. His back leg is too torn for it. "Instead of kill me, she make me this. Your sister very lucky. I just a little younger than her when I change."

Sidney's stomach twists. He tries to imagine Zhenya as child, lost and frightened. He tries to imagine Taylor falling upon the same fate and he has to stop. Taylor is safe and Zhenya is healing. It's all he can ask for right now. 

"Why did you bring her here?" Sidney asks. 

"Give her peaceful place to die," Zhenya says without flinching. Sidney cringes. He has replayed Zhenya's cold, cold words many times in his head. He _had_ been careless with Taylor. Zhenya rolls his head, nuzzling at Sidney's hand until Sidney carefully scratches the soft fur behind his ear. "You not have to stay."

"You're not better yet," Sidney protests. Zhenya bares his teeth in what Sidney thinks is a smile. 

Sidney sleeps against Zhenya's side, taking in his warmth. He thinks he'll stay, even once Zhenya is well. The village is home, is where his family is, but he hadn't been close to the rest of its people. It's close enough to visit, and he wonders if Zhenya would have let him before if Sidney had ever bothered to ask. 

In the morning he can't feel Zhenya against him. Sidney sits up, panicked. He turns and nearly bangs his head into the floor. There is a naked man laying beside him, curled on his side. He is tall and thin, his shoulders wide and hair dark and curling across his forehead. Thick, raised scars cross over his chest and arms, and there is a pink, raw looking knot of them near his knee. 

Dark eyes blink slowly open and Sidney holds his breath. The man, who cannot be much older than Sidney is, body still soft with youth, frowns and touches his own face. His fingers move across his cheeks, his mouth. His eyes widen as he holds his hand up and stares in wonder as he flexes his fingers. 

"Zhenya?" Sidney asks carefully. The man's head snaps up, his sleepy eyes locking on Sidney's. 

"Sidney?" That is Zhenya's accent, Zhenya's voice, less garbled for the lack of fangs. It's so strange to see wide human lips shaping around the word. "What you do?"

"I don't know," Sidney says. He places a careful hand on Zhenya's cheek and feels nothing but smooth skin. 

"I want to see," Zhenya says. He sits up, groaning as the wounds still open on his stomach pull. Sidney scrambles to help him, forcing him to lean back against the wall instead of standing. "Pushy."

"You don't have fur anymore," Sidney says. Zhenya smiles and Sidney can't help returning it. "You don't have fur anymore." They argue for a moment more, but Sidney manages to argue Zhenya into staying still. 

He digs through his pack and comes back with clothes. Zhenya stares at them for a moment, lost, until Sidney helps him put them on. They're too small, but there's nothing else available. Zhenya is wobbly when he stands, unused to his body. Sidney settles under his arm and together they manage the walk to the river. 

Zhenya falls to his knees and stares open-mouthed at his reflection. Sidney shivers in the cold but stays silent as Zhenya learns the shape of his own face. He can't help but overlay the image of the beast over Zhenya's body, his mind stuck trying to make them into one. Zhenya laughs, an entirely human laugh, and just as quickly begins crying. 

"Zhenya?" Sidney asks tentatively. Zhenya wipes a big hand across his face but the tears keep coming. Carefully, Sidney hugs him. He's so much smaller like this, more real than the beast ever could have been. 

"Never think-" Zhenya cups Sidney's cheek, tender in a way he couldn't be before. Sidney holds his breath even as Zhenya moves closer to him. "Always thought I be monster forever. You fix. Don't know what you do, but you fix. Thank you."

Zhenya kisses him, clumsy but sure, and something in Sidney's chest breaks free. 

They sit huddled together on the bank, stealing each other's warmth until Zhenya's tears dry. He has to be frozen straight through, and one of his wounds has begun bleeding through Sidney's shirt. Sidney thinks about the long walk back to the village, thinks about finding Zhenya a place in it, but it feels wrong. He had decided to stay before, and that's what he would do. 

"Let's go back," Sidney says softly. He holds his hand out and Zhenya takes it. His skin is warm, smooth. "We'll start rebuilding the house tomorrow. You can actually help this time."

Zhenya laughs, his voice echoing through the trees, and they make their way back home.


End file.
